Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[l3loodAngel]

• Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.
• Mistake #2 - Letting Math Trump Psychology: Revealing the influence of the years he spent developing Wildstar, Tim wants to develop mechanics that are psychologically satisfying and addictive, even at the expense of mathematical elegance. For example, he says the player's first attack against an enemy should always hit even if his overall hit percentage is the same regardless, and that rather than allow players to increase their critical hit chance, they should only be allowed to increase their critical hit damage.
• Mistake #3 - Conflating Player Skill With Character Skill: This one will be familiar if you've watched some of Josh Sawyer's talks. Aiming and hitting in an action-RPG should not be determined by character stats. On the other hand, things like the impact of recoil can be affected by stats, as well as the aforementioned critical hit damage.

Target Audience:

 

[Ezeekiel]

• Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.
• Mistake #2 - Letting Math Trump Psychology: Revealing the influence of the years he spent developing Wildstar, Tim wants to develop mechanics that are psychologically satisfying and addictive, even at the expense of mathematical elegance. For example, he says the player's first attack against an enemy should always hit even if his overall hit percentage is the same regardless, and that rather than allow players to increase their critical hit chance, they should only be allowed to increase their critical hit damage.
• Mistake #3 - Conflating Player Skill With Character Skill: This one will be familiar if you've watched some of Josh Sawyer's talks. Aiming and hitting in an action-RPG should not be determined by character stats. On the other hand, things like the impact of recoil can be affected by stats, as well as the aforementioned critical hit damage.

Target Audience:
View attachment 8038

Damn straight.

 

[Infinitron]

• Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.
• Mistake #2 - Letting Math Trump Psychology: Revealing the influence of the years he spent developing Wildstar, Tim wants to develop mechanics that are psychologically satisfying and addictive, even at the expense of mathematical elegance. For example, he says the player's first attack against an enemy should always hit even if his overall hit percentage is the same regardless, and that rather than allow players to increase their critical hit chance, they should only be allowed to increase their critical hit damage.
• Mistake #3 - Conflating Player Skill With Character Skill: This one will be familiar if you've watched some of Josh Sawyer's talks. Aiming and hitting in an action-RPG should not be determined by character stats. On the other hand, things like the impact of recoil can be affected by stats, as well as the aforementioned critical hit damage.

Target Audience:

Fixed.

 

[Achilles]

Watching this video was like observing a beloved grandparent as he is slowly slipping into insanity. So sad.

 

[l3loodAngel]

7 ways to try to hide you are making an RPG for people that don't like RPGs.

Yeah. Why do they insist that those shooters they keep churning out are RPGs?
Call them what they are: Action games and go away from our genre...

 

[Don Peste]

This is fine.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Replace this this TC's head.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah. Why do they insist that those shooters they keep churning out are RPGs?
Call them what they are: Action games and go away from our genre...

Action games have no to little role playing. Considering all the niche-targeting RPGs that have been and are being made recently, there's no need to get upset over those that go for wider/broader appeal.

 

[Outlander]

We forgive you.

Spoiler

 

[Kev Inkline]

I think it's clear that Tim and Leonard's game will very much be a streamlined, "newschool" sort of RPG. Those who want a more classical experience from Obsidian will have to look towards Pillars of Eternity II.

Observe that this is purely Infinitron's own interpretation. I see nothing here that would mean other than just a little bit of streamlining from the first Fallout, you know the classic where you have to find your dad.

 

[ShadowSpectre]

Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

I think at some point we'll just have to blame education going down the shitter on why "character creation is too hard" for this generation and the upcoming ones. They can't read, they can't write, and they sure as hell can't do math or plan ahead. I also don't see how geometric shapes will help any when they can't even figure out how to put a cylinder in the accordingly correct hole (ie: puzzles too hard) despite earlier sex ed. It's not the same as a proper class on mathematical geometry.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Yeah. Why do they insist that those shooters they keep churning out are RPGs?
Call them what they are: Action games and go away from our genre...

Action games have no to little role playing. Considering all the niche-targeting RPGs that have been and are being made recently, there's no need to get upset over those that go for wider/broader appeal.

Not upset? We buy their fucking games with our hard earned money. Some of us were/are poor. We are the core that brings them financial cushion, when they fail and get abandoned by mainstream. Or torn by mainstream media and give them benefit of doubt when fail all over again trying to appeal to mainstream. We praise them, when everybody else has frogotten about them and read their retrospectives about good old days and give them confidence. We give them credibility and they ditch us like a cheap hooker AGAIN at the first opportunity.

If they want to add dialogues to Quake or CS I don't mind, but don't call them RPGs.

Well this has been a nighmare all over again... Maybe it's time to turn the lights off for my gaming and time to grow up?

 

[Kev Inkline]

Sure, you might be right, but the extreme conclusion from what Grauken is saying is that you should never create graphs in Excel, because just reading the numbers off the table is more intuitive. Of course that's not what he really means, so better to just say that this particular visualization doesn't look like it will work.

That's different. In most cases not using tables instead of diagrams is utterly valid, because executives want it down to simple numbers, nobody reads tables, as most of the information in them is extraneous. But cRPG players use character stats. Hiding them is an affront.

Makes me question, why not have both? Why not have both the underlying numbers in the (a)RPG, and the visual display of information?

Pretty much like Perron has it here, without the genderfluid person though.

He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

You can have both visualized attributes and numbers at the same time.

 

[Infinitron]

You know, that's probably what they'll do. Experimenting with a numberless system (that is, a system that works fine without the numbers) doesn't mean you can't throw in the numbers at the end too for the people who want them.

People might be taking this talk a little too seriously, the game's still deep in preprod.

 

[J_C]

His first point is retarded. I didn't understand anything about that triangle style system, but I can understand what numbers mean. I know that a character with 5 strength is stronger than one with 3 strength. Why can't people understand that numbers actually help to understand how a system works. Putting arbitrary shapes and colors will just leave me scratching my head.

Oh, and Fallout 1's character creator was super easy to understand if you have an IQ higher than 70. For fucks sake, every line can be clicked on and it will be explained in the bottom right corner.

Also his comment at the end about they were laughing about 1st edition AD&D being bad because for example, women strength was limited lower than men. - Umm, maybe because physically women ARE weaker than men.

 

[karoliner]

I really should stop reading kodex news is nothing but decline nowadays.

 

[boobio]

Redditers are making fun of the codex; this cannot stand!

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/66vuqa/tim_cain_cocreator_of_fallout_at_reboot_develop/

 

[iZerw]

Why can't we have a cRPG game developer behaving like the equivalent of AC/DC : always do the same king of thing you are known for doing well over and over and over and over because it's GOOD and it WORKS (if you like that of course).
Now i know game industry and music industry is not the same but still...just use the improvement of technology to make things better (enhance interface, increase options, improve graphics) but don't mess with the fundamentals !

But they do! Call of Duty, ME, Borderlands, Batman games. You think they should build on top of the classic stuff, you're wrong. They want money, want to sell product, so the model will be new Fallout or Skyrim. AAA RPGs will never be PC games again but streamlined simplified action console games.

 

[Roguey]

Not upset? We buy their fucking games with our hard earned money. Some of us were/are poor. We are the core that brings them financial cushion, when they fail and get abandoned by mainstream. Or torn by mainstream media and give them benefit of doubt when fail all over again trying to appeal to mainstream. We praise them, when everybody else has frogotten about them and read their retrospectives about good old days and give them confidence. We give them credibility and they ditch us like a cheap hooker AGAIN at the first opportunity.

If they want to add dialogues to Quake or CS I don't mind, but don't call them RPGs.

Well this has been a nighmare all over again... Maybe it's time to turn the lights off for my gaming and time to grow up?

This is a game for the New Vegas audience. It'll cost tens of millions to make and market and the publisher will expect millions of sales. It has to be a bit on the dumb side by necessity, because millions of people don't buy games like pre-Fallout 3 or Arcanum.

 

[DeepOcean]

His first point is retarded. I didn't understand anything about that triangle style system, but I can understand what numbers mean. I know that a character with 5 strength is stronger than one with 3 strength. Why can't people understand that numbers actually help to understand how a system works. Putting arbitrary shapes and colors will just leave me scratching my head.

Oh, and Fallout 1's character creator was super easy to understand if you have an IQ higher than 70. For fucks sake, every line can be clicked on and it will be explained in the bottom right corner.

The illusion that if you tweak things, magically people that don't like RPGs are going to love them. It starts with tweaking then they start stripping features until they have an open world shooter with meaningless progression and choice and consequence and lo and behold, people like open world shooters.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Not upset? We buy their fucking games with our hard earned money. Some of us were/are poor. We are the core that brings them financial cushion, when they fail and get abandoned by mainstream. Or torn by mainstream media and give them benefit of doubt when fail all over again trying to appeal to mainstream. We praise them, when everybody else has frogotten about them and read their retrospectives about good old days and give them confidence. We give them credibility and they ditch us like a cheap hooker AGAIN at the first opportunity.

If they want to add dialogues to Quake or CS I don't mind, but don't call them RPGs.

Well this has been a nighmare all over again... Maybe it's time to turn the lights off for my gaming and time to grow up?

This is a game for the New Vegas audience. It'll cost tens of millions to make and market and the publisher will expect millions of sales. It has to be a bit on the dumb side by necessity, because millions of people don't buy games like pre-Fallout 3 or Arcanum.

Would you not consider Codex FNV audience? I think it's quite well received here. Nothing that would warrant graphics instead of stats though.

 

[ciox]

Replacing attributes with geometric shapes is bizarrely over the line, where this concept somewhat makes sense is to clearly delineate relationships between data in very fuzzy areas of an RPG, like say fortitude throws and spell effects that trigger them, you would have an icon for a certain level of fortitude, which is both in your character screen and in the description of a spell whose effects can be affected by fortitude, saving you a little time and attention.
Another area of extreme fuzziness is how spell or other negative effects can actually be affected by fortitude or other stats, basically anything on earth could happen and you need to read the whole block of text to find out what it could be, this too could be standardized with clear easily remembered effects associated with icons/text instead of a block of text that tells you the whole story and introduces a whole bunch of arbitrary effects, with this new system you get a lock&key type of design.

Whatever, this is just a thought I had earlier for how you would make an RPG more friendly if you really had to, I can't even begin to understand the thought process of turning attributes into triangles to "make it easier".

 

[Chainsaw Gutsfuck]

Focusing on action combat instead of trying to hybridise is definitely a step in the right direction, remember how the combat in VTMB, Deus Ex or System Shock 2 was subpar because of this. If you want to do action combat, do it as it should be.

On a different note, limiting the attributes in four levels is basically what Deus Ex did, with the untrained, trained, advanced and master level. It's not a disaster, if still a let down compared to the character sheet of something like Bloodlines.

 

[DeepOcean]

Yeah. Why do they insist that those shooters they keep churning out are RPGs?
Call them what they are: Action games and go away from our genre...

Action games have no to little role playing. Considering all the niche-targeting RPGs that have been and are being made recently, there's no need to get upset over those that go for wider/broader appeal.

What really bothers me isn't Obsidian making a popamole game, they can do what the fuck they want but this disingenuous idea that "Man, RPGs weren't popular because we didn't know those awesome UI gimmicks that we know now, streamline and dumb down is the slick way to do RPGs. Oh boy, if we only knew this that time!" Why not being honest and just admitting you aren't making RPGs anymore? And that all your super awesome gimmicks that you learned all those years all boil down to make an RPG game closer and closer to an straight action game.

 

[Roguey]

Would you not consider Codex FNV audience? I think it's quite well received here. Nothing that would warrant graphics instead of stats though.

We're on the fringes. A series of Josh-posts

You and every other RPG developer talk about this mythical wider audience, but how legitimate is that? Do you really think there is some RPG formula out there that would pull in Call of Duty numbers on a repeating basis?

What is "mythical" about Fallout: New Vegas selling in 5 million units compared to the few hundred thousand that bought Icewind Dale? Even when I was making Icewind Dale and IWD2, I could see a lot of new players struggling to understand the rules -- both 2nd Ed. and 3E.

No, I don't expect to pull in CoD numbers because CoD's design is extraordinarily simple and there's nothing in CoD's design that would suggest they are attempting to challenge players. I think it should be obvious by the features that we put into F:NV that we were not attempting to further simplify the game or the genre.

You're spot on about NVs audience being larger than IWDs, but why do most RPG devs refer to a "modern" audience instead of wide vs. niche? For reference, no one in their right mind would call HAWX a more "modern" flight-sim than DCS-A10C.

I'm not sure. I don't *think* I refer to them as "modern". It seems like an odd term to use. I'd just use wider. We're making games on more platforms for more people. It's a bigger, more diverse audience. I'm fine with that, as long as I have the chance to draw people in for a challenge.

This may seem odd, but I view it as asking people to step up rather than reaching down. But this gesture has to be one that's inviting, not hostile, if that makes sense. I want people to have fun with the games that I make, but that includes working a bit to succeed. Making people "sweat" a little is good. Punching them in the face isn't. I don't want to design games to box people out because they aren't immediately awesome at them.

Geometric shapes = not boxing them out

To compare with a straight face, the quality of game design of FNV and IWD, based on sales is innately stupid and downright insane ! Do you seriously believe that the potential audience numbers for both were equal ? There is almost 10 years between them !

"Do you seriously believe that the potential audience numbers for both were equal ?"

No... and that's what I'm suggesting. F:NV is a much broader-appeal game with a lower barrier of entry and overall difficulty. Both it and F3 are broader-appeal games with lower barriers of entry than F1 or F2, as well.

I made no comparison of game quality between IWD and F:NV, only audience size, which is what the person asking the question was incredulous about.

What really bothers me isn't Obsidian making a popamole game, they can do what the fuck they want but this disingenuous idea that "Man, RPGs weren't popular because we didn't know those awesome UI gimmicks that we know now, streamline and dumb down is the slick way to do RPGs. Oh boy, if we only knew this that time!" Why not being honest and just admitting you aren't making RPGs anymore? And that all your super awesome gimmicks that you learned all those years all boil down to make an RPG game closer and closer to an straight action game.

They are making RPGs, as Obsidian defines (a game with any kind of conflict resolution system with a lot of attention devoted to scripted and systemic reactivity).